Dare to Hope
by A touch of
Summary: "Charish life, for you only have once chance to live it. Love your friends and your family, they will be the ones to look over you when you die, just as you will look over the friends and family who die before you. Everyday is worth living." He didnt believe it, until it happened. Trowa/Duo fiction, Reviews and your thoughts welcomed...
1. Chapter 1

Dare to Hope:

Trowa/Duo

Drama, angst, hurt/comfort, violence,

Rated Mature due to language, and suggested themes

I do not Own Gundam Wing…

The Year was After Colony 203

Chapter 1:

Rain had never been so gloomy before. Cold and needle sharp, it poured onto the four standing men like it was all their hopes. A mixture of shock and horror played across their faces as the rain had started suddenly, without warning. Just as had the gunfire a breath ago. Blood washed into the street from the fallen form not but three running strides ahead.

In that moment, where they saw their friend fall, all had different reactions.

The blond screamed the name lost to thunder roll above, tears streaming down his face, the rain doing little to wash them away.

One of the brunets pulled his gun aim searching for the shooter, his muscles pulled tight and his face hardened like rock. The other stood, in shocked silence, eyes wider than normal as he gazed upon the brown hair of what had been… Silent tears mixed with the rain.

The Chinese male clenched his fist glaring heatedly despite the cold, dull feeling seeping into his bones. He would personally torture the one responsible for this, he swore it to himself.

There was nothing any of them could do. As the blond crashed beside the fallen friend his hands turned him over, eyes filled with heart wrenching pain looked over the body. The bullet had lodged itself inside, right where the heart was. His hands flew to the wound. He knew, though, as he coved the hole in the other's chest. Blood poured out from the wound covering the still small hands.

The Year was After Colony 203, one of the five gundam pilots died, February 16th, Earth, middle America.

A/N - this is more or less a prologue then a real chapter, hence the shortness of it. - This is just to get you hooked onto what I have planned.

Would love to hear what you have to say, to any/all chapters - feel free to leave a review…


	2. Chapter 2

Dare to Hope:

Trowa/Duo

Drama, angst, hurt/comfort, violence,

Rated Mature due to language, and suggested themes

I do not own Gundam Wing…

The Year was After Colony 202, February 17th.

* * *

Chapter 2:

Duo Maxwell sat on the couch in the living room of one of Quatre's large mansions he had on Earth. Holding a controller to a video game, he twisted his body with that of what was happening on the screen, which was currently beating Heero in a fight. His bare foot was planted on the said loosing opponent as Duo tried to distract him. The perfect soldier retaliated in his attempt not to loose. Quatre held a tray of hot chocolate and little pieces of mint chocolate covered candies, his eyes glued to the large television as the two fought for their lives. Duo's tongue then poked out of his mouth as he twisted the other way into Trowa who had been sitting calmly watching them, 'awaiting' his turn as it was. He gently shoved the other away from him and back onto his side of the couch.

"Maxwell can you play the game like a normal person?" Wufei asked from the chair on the other side of the couch, closer to Duo.

"I am!" came the loud reply from the excited youth. Wufei turned back to the book he had been reading. "You're goin down buddy," he said to Heero.

"Hn," was the only reply he got before Duo pulled off a combo attack that led to Heero's death. Heero stared at the screen for a long moment before he held up the controller for Trowa to take. Quatre smiled as he sat the tray down on the table between Duo and Wufei. The Chinese man reached for the mug closest to him and paused, it had a large number three, with a green and which checkered pattern and a smaller half clown mask. His hand hovered over it before he shifted it to the one to the left. Which was white with a black number five with a deep aqua Chinese dragon weaved around it. Same on both sides, as he knew all their mugs were. He took stock of the mugs, Heero's being the simplest design, a number one marked bold on both sides with a thin red wire woven around the ones and the mug handle. Duo's was also simple in design with a black number two and his beam scythe colored in with the cross necklace he wore from it. Detailed but simple. Quatre's was a work of art, the number four was dark against the sands of the desert and the two crescent swords his Gundam use to use. The blades had been etched and colored to fine detail, as all their mugs were. Wufei always thought his was the prettiest.

Duo took the mug marked two and brought it to his lips, and pulled it back. "Hot," he said while breathing on the steam rising from the murky contents.

"Hot chocolate," Wufei said. "It would be chocolate milk if it was cold."

Duo turned to look at him and opened his mouth to say something when his gaze fell to the dark window. He watched as the snow drifted down to the ground and leaving a blanket of white outside. What ever he was going to say was cut off in his throat and he smiled. Not the goof smile he always wore, but a true real smile that was rare on his face. Wufei turned to look at the massive window that held Duo's attention. Two months ago that window held a tree, they decorated together listening to Christmas songs and just being themselves. They had started this little tradition three years ago, and each year they understood each other a little better. Even through all the stupid things Duo does and all the emotional problems of Heero's as he tried not to hide behind the prefect soldier, preventer work for most of them. Wufei understood in a strange type of way. They were a family.

When Wufei turned back around to look at Duo the former pilot was watching him, "got something wrong with my face Maxwell?"

"Yeah," Duo replied easily, "its kinda off center, it's a bit high too…" he said and placed a finger to his own nose, pushing it up and over. "Like a pig."

Trowa still holding the controller took the mug Quatre offered him before the blond sat down on the arm of the couch close to Trowa. Watching Duo and Wufei.

"Are you calling me a swine Maxwell?" Wufei growled.

"Nope, I said you faces looks like a pig…" Then there was a duck, Trowa dropped the controller into his lap and took Duo's mug as the former pilot took a tumble out of the couch as Wufei went to hit him with a pillow. "Woa, pillow fights now Wu? Kinda girlish…" he remarked as he covered his head and ran away from the enraged man.

Heero sipped at his hot chocolate as his gaze went over to the two that were always at odds with each other. Even after all these years Duo still manages to get under Wufei's skin. Heero heard the rich sound of Quatre's chuckle and looked over at the blond. His head was turned so he could see the profile of the small and handsome young man. His eyes slid over to Trowa who listened to the insult yells and the pattering of bare feet on wood flooring.

"Have you asked him?" came Quatre's question. Heero knew it was directed towards him. He and Quatre had spoken the past few months over someone Heero may or may not like, and although Quatre gives good advice, Heero wasn't sure how he was going to tell him.

"No," was the only reply he had.

"What's wrong Heero?" Quatre turned to look at Heero now. The perfect soldier turned his head away and looked at the screen, flashing boxes for the choosing of battle opponents.

"I just, haven't had the time to," he partly lied. Though they wouldn't know that, he had been rather busy at work and he hadn't been able really interact with him because of it.

Trowa didn't miss the way he avoided direct eye contact with Quatre. He knew, because he was feeling the same way towards an idiot that liked to poke fire. He turned his head when he heard running steps and then stood up just slightly so that he wasn't actually sitting down. Duo jumped over the back of the couch and landed on his butt in his seat. A grin plastered to his face.

"Slow poke!" he called over his shoulder. "Ready Tro?"

Trowa sat back down and handed Quatre his mug and Duo his. Duo took a drink and sat it down on the table to his side and took up his controller. The game had started.

Trowa blinked at the screen, slowly. The fight had been a good one, Duo sat numbed. His character lay dead with the letters K.O flashing on his side of the screen. Quatre was holding in his fits of giggles as Wufei stood with arms crossed, as if it was a righteous victory.

"How?" Duo sputtered. He had spent hours on this game, learning it, all the secrets, all the moves. Trowa sat calmly, he had a silver of health left himself. It hadn't been a hands down win.

"Lucky?" Trowa offered as a reply.

"Beginners luck huh…" Duo said and tossed his controller to Quatre. He caught it easily enough having put his and Trowa's mugs to the front table. On nights like this, it was normally Duo that held the controller most of the time, he hand it off to others with the complaint of his hands were cramping. Everyone knew well enough that Duo could spend days inside a gundam hands clenched to the controls as if they were a life line, which other they were. They knew after that his hands didn't cramp from a few fights. He was being fair and giving others turns. He didn't have to play that card this night it seemed.

With that said Quatre won his fight against Trowa, the girl on the screen giving the victory sign several times. Trowa offered the controller to Wufei, who glared at the plastic gizmo with distrust and distaste.

"Come on Wuffles," Duo turned his head back so he was looking at Wufei upside down. The former nataku pilot snatched the controller and sat down in his seat.

"Its Wufei," he said as he selected his character.

The controllers passed around the room lazily after that, a couple of hours passed and yawns were starting to break out. Mostly due to Duo.

He stood and stretched out his arms and legs. "I'm out," he said with a wave. This shocked Wufei and Quatre. They both knew that Duo was normally the last one to go to sleep.

"Huh," Quatre said as he watched the swinging braid his friend vanish into the darkness of the stairs.

"He's been going to bed earlier," Heero said, "waking up earlier too."

"Of course you'd keep tabs," Wufei said.

"What is he doing waking up early?" Quatre inquired.

Heero shrugged as he stood up and moved to sit in the empty spot Duo had left. He turned the television off and closed his eyes as he thought.

* * *

Duo turned the wrench over in his hand as he looked at the machine that was in front of him. The large military grade over terrain vehicle was in his shop for gear shifting problems. He looked over the paper work for the thing and then up at Wufei who had brought it in. "You're a former gundam pilot and all you can tell me is the gear shifting is screwy?" he asked.

"There is also sand -" Wufei started.

"Yeah I read that causes it not to turn all the time…"

"Can you fix it?" Wufei question without thinking. Duo glared at him before Trowa placed a hand on Wufei's shoulder. "How long?"

"With the work load I have-"

"Preventer comes first," Wufei reminded.

"I'll get to it right after I get done with Une's car," he said tagging and placing the work order in a bag before hanging it up on the wall.

Trowa watched Duo as he typed up the rest of the paper work on the computer. There were people in the little shop waiting for their cars to be worked on or fixed that were sitting down. Green eyes swept over the group and then landed back on Duo. "What's wrong with Une's car?"

"Someone ran into her, she's not going to be very happy when you go in…" Duo replied easily and waited for the pages to print. Wufei watched him as he took the two sheets of paper and handed them over to Wufei who looked over the document and then signed at the bottom. "I'll call you when it's ready.." The door open to the garage section of the place. Duo turned around to see a middle aged man covered in grease.

"Mister Maxwell," he said softly. "The blue Cord is finished."

"Okay you see that large peace of machine out there?" Duo asked pointed to the preventer's truck. The man looked and nodded. "Get that one back into the shop area. Gate three."

"Yes sir," the man said and moved to take the keys from Duo.

Duo watched as he went outside, the snow had been cleared away from his parking lot this morning. "Anyway, yeah Une wasn't real happy when she came in here, I doubt her head has cooled in the past hour," he turned his attention to Wufei who had his eyes closed.

"Women…" he muttered. Trowa stood silently, this was his first time here at Duo's mechanic shop. The lobby was small, but there was a coffee pot with coffee, a small clear glass cooler with bottled juices and water. There was even a table with some plain doughnuts on it. There were a couple of tables with magazines, and chairs all around the place.

"This is nice…" Trowa finally said. Duo blinked at him and grinned some.

"Thanks, though I still miss the L2 scrap yard," he looked around. "This is nice. I get spare parts from Hilde whenever I don't have what I am looking for in the back."

"You have a scrap yard here too?" Trowa asked his gaze settling on Duo.

"Yep," the shorter man replied. "Its small though," he answered. "Julie, your car is finished," he said and took the keys and plastic cover from the wall. Trowa and Wufei said their good byes and left the shop. The Preventer's headquarters was just down the street, so they decided to walk it. Wufei easily keeping up with Trowa's long legs.

"Its good that he does something he likes," Wufei said. Trowa was a little shocked at what he said but didn't respond right away. "Maxwell I mean."

"Duo has always liked working with his hands," Trowa replied.

"You didn't have to come with me," Wufei finally said as they passed little shopping centers, windows painted in display of their goods.

"I hadn't been there before."

Wufei made a noise in the back of his throat and slowed his step. "You work in child affairs right?"

"Yeah, I take missions from Une on occasion," Trowa answered he slowed to match Wufei without thinking. The Chinese agent stared at him for a long time as they walked. Trying to coax information out of him without asking. It wasn't working.

"Why?"

Trowa didn't look at Wufei, he knew what he was asking. "Because, children are our next generation." He also knew that that wasn't what Wufei was asking. The man let out an annoyed sound before looked in front of him again.

"Quatre is loyal," Wufei remarked.

"He is," Trowa agreed, a smile playing at the corner of his lips.

"Duo is hyper," Wufei stated.

"Yes," Trowa agreed again.

"Quatre has liked you since the beginning."

"Maybe."

"Duo had fallen for Heero…"

"No," Trowa disagreed.

Wufei was confused. "No?"

They turned the corner just to lengthen their walk a little longer. They stopped at the street and waited for the light to change.

"That's right, Heero told me himself because he had a little heart to heart with Duo a year or so back," Trowa explained. "Duo was never in love with the Prefect soldier…"

Wufei pressed the button to get the walk sign. He watched the snow a long moment trying to replay the entire war in his head in a few seconds. The light changed and they walked across.

"So again why?" Wufei asked. "You could have Quatre…"

Trowa chocked on a laugh. "And upset the prefect soldier into killing me… no thanks."

"Heero?"

"Who else? Heero likes Quatre, has now for a while."

This information struck Wufei like a smack to the face as they came to a stop at the preventer main doors. Wufei schooled his expression before he walked inside, he would have to talk more with Trowa later. Trowa followed him in. The woman at the desk looked up as they scanned their badges.

"Agent Chang, Agent Barton, Commander Une wishes to see you in conference room thirty-six," the woman said.

They both nodded their heads and went to the elevator. "Don't say anything to either of them." Trowa said once they were inside the death trap.

Trowa leaned back as the floors slowly dinged up. Once they got to the floor they needed, and to the room they needed. Wufei knocked once before entering. Une was already looking towards the door, her expression was schooled to a controlled anger.

"You're late," she said and nodded her head to the folders. Wufei sat down across from Heero and Trowa took up the seat and folder next to his. "This is a recon, Agent Yuy will lead the main team, Wufei you will lead the back up. Do not engage in combat," she said as the two Agents that just arrived looked over the mission details. "Trowa you are one of the better pilots that wont be going in. You will be the drop off and pick up."

"Yes ma'am," Trowa replied. Une nodded her head to him and then opened her folder.

She pressed a button on the table. "Send in the teams," she said. Six others walked in raging in heights and looks. Une waited for them to be seated before she started. "Your mission is to retrieve personal information on their main data base. Intel has told us that more people are in their employee list than what is truly there. They suspect that they are running an underground military function. If you find information to this, get it, if you cannot leave it, but make note of it. Heero's team will lead. Should something happen to them, Wufei's back up team will go in and get them out. Again, do not engage in enemy combat. You leave tomorrow, you have this time to work with your teams." Une said and stood up, she looked to Wufei and Trowa before she headed out.

Heero stood and clicked a button to bring up a map of the building they would be breaking into.

"This is the OutReach Science Lab," he said turning towards it as blue dots appeared with an cone coming from them. "These are the cameras," he said and then black dots appeared. "This is team one," he then looked at the group. "Team one will cut the camera's feed and replace it with a loop feed, this effect will last for ten seconds. The engineer will have to do this for each camera we come across," he said as the little black dots made their way across several halls and up or down a flight of stairs to a room with a red 'x'. "This is the room we will need to get to. The building turned, it was on the second floor, then it went back to lay out view. Heero showed them the flash drive, "this take three minutes to download." He looked at the floor plan again. "This mission should only take us seven minutes to complete. We have a window of ten. Radio silence during these ten minutes, if something happens, Preventer code will be used, no voices. You each have a map and the camera lay out. Learn the route. Any questions?"

"Who's the engineer to shut the camera's off for the ten seconds?" one asked. Heero looked at the teams.

"Anyone here that can do that?" he asked. They all shook their heads.

"Duo," Trowa called up. "You can replace one of the team members for Duo."

"He's not a field Agent," Heero said.

"He's not an Agent at all," Wufei corrected.

"No, but I bet he could do it, and from outside too," Trowa responded. Heero didn't deny that he could. The question was would Une allow it?

"You request to Une and Duo and I will redraw up the plans according to what he can do," Heero said to Trowa. Who nodded his head and stood up from the chair and walked out. It was best do it sooner so Heero could work on the battle plans.

Making it to Une office was easy, getting her to agree was something completely different.

"Maxwell, yes works for Preventers but as a mechanic, he has the formal training and yes an Agent badge, but he has never been in a field mission, he is at this point considered a civilian." Une looked at Trowa.

"If Duo heard you say that he would flip," Noin said from beside Une's desk. "He was a gundam pilot, just because he doesn't go around carrying a gun all the time now doesn't make him useless."

"He still carries," Trowa remarked. "We don't have any engineers on either of the teams that could do what Heero wants, what he needs to have happen for the mission to work."

Une glared up at him when her speaker static and a woman called from the other end. "Ma'am you have a call from Mister Maxwell, line two."

Une picked up the phone and held it to her ear. Trowa or Noin couldn't hear what Duo said.

"Thank you Duo, could you come to my office?" she asked still glaring at Trowa. "Fifteen minutes," she replied again, Trowa kept her gaze even. "Thank you Duo." She placed the phone down on the hook and leaned back in her chair.

Duo arrived fifteen minutes later, he was wearing his coat and there was still snow sticking to his braid as he walked into Une's office. Trowa and Heero were standing with Une and Noin. Duo looked at them in complete confusion. Une sat on the corner of her desk as Trowa turned to him. Heero was a bit quicker as he spoke.

"I need you on a recon team, to loop camera feeds, ten second timers," Heero said.

"A field mission?" Duo asked and shook his head as he looked at Une. "I thought we agreed that I wouldn't be placed on any field missions."

"We did, however they need you, to remotely disable the cameras from an external source," Une said. "You will stay in the helicopter with Trowa, and Wufei's back up team during the mission."

Duo sucked in his bottom lip as he thought about what was being asked of him. He had to think if he had the equipment for this or not. He didn't think Preventers would have it. "What time does the mission start?" he asked.

"Tomorrow, fourteen hundred," Heero said. "We'll be taking truck to the preventer air base just outside of the city limits, and then from there fly over in the stealth helicopter to the mission. Roughly three hours of travel, once we reach a safe distance away we will camp until its dark and then make the move in."

Duo watched Heero was he explained to him. The ex-Deathscythe pilot nodded his head. "Yeah, we'll use my equipment for it."

"Your equipment?" Une asked lifting a brow.

"Yeah, I'll show ya my pretty little toys tomorrow, and I'll explain how they work too," he grinned slightly. Noin smiled at him and gave a bit of a laugh.

"Making things that are against civilian regulations?" Nion inquired.

"Hey! I am not a civilian," Duo argued crossing his arms over his chest. Trowa watched the movement carefully.

"Explain these toys Duo," Wufei said from the door. Duo blinked at him and then nodded his head.

"We'll have a make a pass over once so I can drop a sensor and transmitter on the building. Heero's team will also be carrying a button that will allow me to see where they are inside the building, the transmitter will also allow me to send my signals to the cameras," Duo said. Une narrowed her eyes slightly but she nodded her head. That would help them.

"Do you need to revise your plan?" Une asked Heero, the soldier shook his head. "Dismissed until tomorrow."

A/N:

Thank you Pattyard for the review, and I am sorry you do not like sad fictions. I hope that you come back and give this another try, if not then I understand. I hope you find things that you like.

A/N2 - Chapter two complete… yay! So what was up with chapter one? *shrugs* you'll just have to wait and see…


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